The National Assembly standing committee on railways on Friday directed the Pakistan Railways to carryout a survey to identify railways bridges, which need immediate repair and rehabilitation to avoid any untoward incident.
The committee met with Sardar Tufail Ahmed in the chair at the parliament house, which was briefed by the railways general-manager on the collapse of Ran Pathani bridge in July this year.
According to a press release issued on Friday, the railways general-manager informed the committee that due to massive sand and gravel mining in the upstream riverbed and silting of spans caused its collapse.
The committee pointed out as to why the railways engineering staff did not identify any abnormalities in the structure of the bridge during their periodical monitoring and inspection.
Responding to the observations of the committee, the general-manager informed that the engineering staff and the federal government inspector for railways had informed the divisional superintendent concerned to carryout necessary maintenance, who failed to timely comply, resulting in the collapse of the bridge. The general-manager further informed the divisional superintendent along with other staff concerned have been suspended for the negligence on their part.
Railways secretary informed the committee that services of a foreign consultant have been hired to carry out survey of the under-water structures of railways bridges. The committee asked the railway ministry to classify bridges into categories and start replacing those, which had been completed their life.
Comments
Comments are closed.